Mary Ellen Greaney Kirst

Service: August 22, 2020 (attendance restricted due to COVID)

Location: Annunciation Roman Catholic Church, Washington, DC

Mary Ellen Kirst -- Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Nurse, and Military Officer - as a Lieutenant (junior grade) in the US Navy Nurse Corps.

Mary Ellen Kirst, 76, a resident of Washington, DC, passed away at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland on August 14, 2020 due to complications from a heart attack after surgery.

Mrs. Kirst was born in the Brooklyn, NY Navy Yard on January 21, 1944, the eldest daughter of Edward Michael Greaney, Jr., M.D.- FACS and Mary Elizabeth Cavanaugh, both of Stamford, CT. The eldest of 10 children, she moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1947, where her father was stationed after serving as a Marine Battalion Surgeon in WWII in the Pacific, serving at the Battle of Iwo Jima. She graduated from Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles with a BS in Nursing in 1965, was commissioned as an officer in the United States Navy Nurse Corps and stationed at Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego, California. Shortly before entering the Navy, she met her husband of 54 years, William ("Bill") Dean Kirst, and they were married within 6 months. They moved around the world for Bill's career, spending 20 years abroad and raising 6 children (three of them born abroad) in Italy, Iran, Poland, Russia, Germany and Switzerland as well as southern California and Texas. Some of Mrs. Kirst’s favorite times were the family’s many summers in Galway, Ireland and Capistrano Beach, CA. They retired in Washington, DC, to be near their children and grandchildren.

Mrs. Kirst is survived by her husband, Bill Kirst, of Washington DC; her daughter Marguerite Kirst (Ron Aizer) of Bethesda, MD; her daughter Kathleen Breault (David) of Seven Valleys, PA; her son, William G. Kirst of Seattle, WA; her daughter Mary Kirst of Manalapan, NJ; her son Kevin Kirst (Anastasia) of Danville, CA, and her son Brian Kirst of Bellingham, WA. She is survived by her 6 grandchildren (Theresa and Camden Colston, Andrew and Christopher Breault, Sophia and Patrick Kirst) and 8 siblings. She is predeceased by her parents and her sister, Deborah Greaney Parker.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at Annunciation Roman Catholic Church in Washington, DC. Internment with military honors at All Souls Cemetery, Germantown, MD. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in memory of Mary Ellen Kirst to the Little Sisters of the Poor Jeanne Jugan Residence at http://www.littlesistersofthepoorwashingtondc.org/